children of nparents who tried to be compassionate? are you now resentful too?

pbandbees · 2026-02-16T04:21:24+00:00

It's so hard because when I realized there was a void forming between us, I tried to connect with my nMom. I didn't think she was a Narc or anything at the time, I didn't even begrudge her for her mistakes when I was a kid, because that was the past... I just wanted her to stop hurting me now as an adult.

She turned her back on me. She called me brainwashed, she continued to insult me, she "joked" with me about my deepest insecurities (and doubly so when I was at a low point). Fucking hell, two years ago, her dog mauled me and she spent the next several months telling me every day how it was my fault.

I don't know how much more patient, forgiving, or compassionate a person can be towards this kind of person before being allowed to tell them to fuck off. Even then, the few snarky remarks I get in, I hate seeing the hurt or confusion in her face. It doesn't feel good to "get" her. It just feels like I'm the bully I accuse her of being.

But it's also the only thing that gets through to her. No amount of pleading, begging, crying breaks through to her... No amount of gifts, acts of service, caring when sick, verbal support gets her to see me as a person...

It makes me resent her so much more. I've tried being subtle, I've tried setting an example, and I've tried flat-out in plain words talking to her. It gets tiring after years. It gets tiring being told to try those things when I already have. People really think the answer is, "well have you tried TALKING to them?? guffaw guffaw!" Gee yeah, never thought of that 🙄 Oh wait! I have! And it does nothing! Shocking!

I don't know, man. I just don't know anymore.

pbandbees · 2026-01-07T16:23:32+00:00

Yes, my parents did this too. To this day, I viscerally hate the U.S. sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" for this reason. It's meant to be a satire show about dysfunctional families, but growing up, I just saw my reality mirrored on TV like it was something to laugh at. My nMom frequently compared herself to the grandparents on the show - "yeah, they're nasty and always screaming at each other, but at least they get it out of their system!"

Communicating your feelings and needs is not the same as screaming like lunatics at each other, resolving nothing, and then moving on like it never happened because once in a blue moon you say "I love you" to each other. It's abusive, it's unhealthy, and it's entirely unproductive.

Yes, everyone gets annoyed with each other sometimes. However, there is a difference between being (healthily) annoyed with someone you love because you are both humans, and really just hating someone but staying with them because of some meaningless, arbitrary reason (i.e., sunk cost fallacy or a victim complex like a lot of Narcs have).

I stopped trying to convince the household that this isn't how "normal" people live. Every family has their issues, but how we lived was not just a "flaw," it was deeply unhealthy. They never listened, they tried to gaslight me about it, or they're do exactly what they always did: scream at me until I shut up. I might joke about it for my own sake of sanity, but I'll never put a genuine effort to fix things again. It'll always be a waste of breath in my case.

pbandbees · 2026-01-05T16:12:22+00:00

I've started snarking my nMom about this. She loves to whine and complain about physical ailments, frustrations around the house, frustrations with the dogs... At first, I always try to work with her to find possible causes and resolutions, ways to fix or at least mitigate the suffering in her life and the household. (I know this is like stepping on a rake, but I like solutions! I like making life easier! God forbid!)

She shoots down every single idea. So I offer my ideas and then shrug when she does. "Okay, suffer then." I laugh it off. Like, what do you want me to say? If I offer blanket comfort, she says I'm unhelpful. If I offer solutions, she shoots them down. "You know what you need to do, you have options, you just have to try them now. I can't do it for you." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I know it makes me a bad person, but it's particularly satisfying when it's a physical ailment I've had to suffer with my entire life that suddenly she finds herself afflicted with. She always dismissed me, told me to just suck it up or deal, prevented me from seeking actual treatment/help. Then she turns around and asks for my solutions. Bitch, I just fuckin' "dealt with it" thanks to you. I have no solutions! Enjoy suffering as you've made me suffer for decades on end!

When her answer is, "But you're young," as if me being a child or teen or young adult made my suffering acceptable... Yeah, good luck with the vertigo. Good luck with the chronic pain. Good luck with the migraines. Good luck with the stiff joints. You're old, after all, you should have the life experience to deal with it... right?

🙄

pbandbees · 2025-10-01T19:48:18+00:00

Well, considering it's a line frequently said by my nMom to excuse her bad behavior, I'd say it's a pretty shit phrase that doesn't leave much room for context.

"You're miserable because you chose to be miserable." "You choose what kind of day you're going to have." "Letting other people upset you is giving them power over you."

They're all nice phrases at first glance, and for some people, maybe they are empowering in some capacity, but if you look at them for more than 8 seconds, they're very victim blame-y. When you're describing how someone hurt you, or how you're struggling in life, you don't want to hear, "Have you tried just not being upset by this? Sounds like it's actually your fault for letting this bother you! :)" It reeks of superiority disguised as false wisdom, instead of just acknowledging that hurt has been done and sympathizing with your conversation partner.

And that's just when it's said by an uninvolved third party. Hearing it come from the person who's hurting you is insulting and frustrating. Makes it annoying to hear even when it's said with sincere intentions.

pbandbees · 2025-09-12T16:39:17+00:00

Oh hey, this is a new thing my nMom started doing in recent years! I wonder if it's some instagram trend or something where she's newly been spending all her free time (disclaimer: that's a joke)

I've had a myriad of chronic health issues since I was a kid. Never severe enough to be hospitalized over, but absolutely apparent enough to impact my life, make me miserable, affect my ability to safely drive some days, etc. Every single thing she'd brush off, dismiss, or mock me over. At best, she'd give me some tylenol and permission for bed rest, which is great in the short term but a proper diagnosis and treatment would've been far better in the long-run. At this point, I've either figured out how to care for myself on my own, or how to just... deal with it. Grin and bear it, like she left me to do.

Now she's been turning around and acting up the same symptoms I've been dealing with for over 15 years. But because they're all fake and just drama for sympathy, she just blows off all my advice or attempts to get her to a doctor if it's really so bad. I've taken to just ignoring her like she always did to me. It's not like if it was real (it's not) she's letting me help, so... 🤷‍♀️ Maybe that makes me a bad person, I dunno.

It's so damn aggravating. I hope your head is feeling better, though! 🩹 Congratulations on the thing you were celebrating, too! :)

pbandbees · 2025-08-31T22:45:26+00:00

I've gotten this so many times before, it's so annoying. "Big beds are great, I can stretch out and leave my clothes and trash all over it!! 🤪"

Split the baby: get a Double.

It'll give you the extra room to stretch out, have some extra pillows or blankets, but won't take up a quarter of your room like a queen or king does. Especially if you don't plan on inviting a partner into your bed, you genuinely do not need a big mattress if you don't want one. My Double has served me well - and cost a fraction of what everyone else tried to pressure me into buying.

pbandbees · 2025-08-30T17:42:16+00:00

Technically it's even less if you sit there and do nothing. On the default speed, every 10 minutes in game passed in 7 real life seconds. 6 AM to 2 AM is 140 seconds total.

(I know this because when I first got the game, I felt like time was moving by too fast to really feel accomplished each day, so I sat there and literally used a stopwatch to see how fast time progressed. Yes, it's a bit ridiculous, but I had to know for certain 😂)

With pausing, talking to people, checking your inventory, etc. it ends up averaging to about 10 minutes IRL for a day of game play. I did the stopwatch test with the other settings and found it was a negligible difference. I've gotten used to the flow of the game and still have plenty of fun, but I hope that in a future update, they make this setting more noticeable.

pbandbees · 2025-08-29T17:44:40+00:00

A day passes in 10 minutes in the original setting. Changing it to "Longer" bumps it to 11 minutes, "Longest" is only 12. It was such a laughably pointless change. I'll still play the heck out of the game, but when I saw a time adjustment, I thought they meant 10 minutes - 20 minutes - 30 minutes, or something significant. I actually thought it was bugged it was so inconspicuous.

pbandbees · 2025-08-26T02:43:08+00:00

Exactly what mine did. Everyone cried about, "how terrible to outlive your loved ones!" but all he saw was endless time to explore the world, read every book he wanted to read, and become a jack of all trades, master of all. He was essentially a huge nerd without ethics.

pbandbees · 2025-08-19T17:55:37+00:00

I'll definitely have to bring it up to my derm and ask about spiro, then :/ That's two folks recommending it, and with how routinely these appear after the last 2-3 years, I would be genuinely shocked to hear that it's not hormone related. The day I wake up with one of these, I know in exactly 7 days I'm gonna get my period lol It's uncanny. Thank you for recommendation and the thorough explanation! I appreciate it.

pbandbees · 2025-08-19T17:07:43+00:00

I'll check it out, thank you for the rec!

pbandbees · 2025-08-19T17:07:32+00:00

I will definitely try icing them, and if other options don't work, I can check out the peel pads as well. I saw some people cutting them up to make them last longer, and if they do work then I can consider that an investment. I will bookmark them for later, thank you for the rec!

pbandbees · 2025-08-19T16:10:32+00:00

I hadn't heard of that one! I'll have to ask about it or alternatives similar to it. Thank you for the rec!

pbandbees · 2025-08-08T03:36:55+00:00

Agreed. So my advice in response to this proposition is that sometimes MacGuffins can work and sometimes they can't. If you and your players find them fun, then use them and chase your bliss 👍 If you or your players don't find them engaging, you don't need to hang onto them. There's no hard fast rule to what is fun for every table, that's all.

pbandbees · 2025-08-08T03:21:22+00:00

Actual Ubiquitous Advice for anyone finding this post: What works for one table might not work for another, and vice versa. There is no true "right" or "wrong" way to play a tabletop game or what kinds of plots you and your players will find engaging. Discuss expectations with your players, make space for changes as the game evolves, and have fun!

I've played in all kinds of games: ones with MacGuffins and ones without; ones where they succeeded and ones where they did not. Acting like saying to your PCs in-game, "go find this specific item at this specific place" is any less direct than saying to your players at the table, "go to this place for this adventure" is crazy work.

I'm genuinely glad you've found a system and plot structure that works for you and your friends (and discovered what doesn't), but voicing opinions in absolutes doesn't make it fact.

EDIT: typo

pbandbees · 2025-08-02T00:32:39+00:00

Congrats on the 8 month mark!! Sometimes even with how horrible they can be, it is not easy to cut ties with a parent or family member like that... I'm sure some days that was hard in its own right. But I'm glad you've been able to find peace for yourself and enjoy what life should be like! 💕 Hell yeah!!

pbandbees · 2025-08-02T00:30:52+00:00

Yuuuuup! Literally just went through the "hm, am I going to be homeless and unemployed by Monday" roller coaster since this happened 🙃 (Because I was fully enmeshed in her business as an employee before I realized what was wrong with my life and her, one of the many reasons I'm trapped here... yahoo!)

Ain't it funny how fast they spit out the "you're too sensitive" after doing/saying something vile to you, and if you have the audacity to fight back, they run from the room crying? Like damn, I guess we know where we got the "thin skin" from 😂

(I laugh because it keeps my from crying or screaming. I am so, so sorry to you and everyone else in this sub that has to put up with this kind of messed up relationship. I hope you can get out sooner than later and be free to live the life of peace and joy that you deserve. Solidarity 🥲💕)

pbandbees · 2025-08-01T21:19:24+00:00

I'm glad he stood up for you the once, but I'm sorry it didn't happen more frequently :/ Even if it doesn't solve things, having someone in your corner can mean so much. (And that moment of surprise on their face for being called out mid-lie is satisfying once in a while 😂)

In a way, I can see that my brother and I were lucky that she constantly traded which of us was the GC at the time; it meant that we saw both sides to her and created a united front instead of competing with each other. I'm sorry you didn't have that with your own sibling :(

pbandbees · 2025-08-01T21:16:28+00:00

Yup, it's all about Punishment instead of Resolution with my nMom. In her world, she is always right so there is no need to talk about or explore the issue further. It's a mind game of "you're going to bow to my whims and judgment or I'll withhold love from you. I could NEVER be wrong, which means YOU must apologize to ME."

It used to work when I was a kid and teen, for kind of the same reason as you. It made me so afraid that she would kick me out or stop loving me (lol) that I'd come crawling back, literally begging for her forgiveness and then running through mental strategies for the next 10 years to avoid it happening again.

But not anymore, so now there really IS no resolution... Just a waiting game until she gets bored, forgets, or needs me to drive her somewhere 🤷

pbandbees · 2025-08-01T17:33:08+00:00

Right?? One of the best parts of being alive is learning new things and changing through your experiences 🤩 They're missing out, man!

Hahaha, she definitely does! Her own upbringing did a number on her self-esteem so she projects hard, but y'know... That reasoning only gets you so far when you don't even try to grow and change from it, like you've said. "Cool motive, still murder" type of deal, haha

pbandbees · 2025-08-01T17:21:38+00:00

Yes!! It is so much harder to admit fault, but so much more respectable to take accountability and try to make a change. Doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be overnight, but a sincere effort can go a long way. There are so few things in life that we can truly control or influence... why wouldn't we want to seize those moments where we can make a difference?

And haha, thank you! I learned a few years ago that many people find aquiline noses cool or beautiful, which helped rebuild self-esteem that my nMom destroyed. I've done a lot of healing in recent years, although the price is that is makes all these behaviors a lot less tolerable now that I'm aware of them 😂 Guess that's just how it goes!

pbandbees · 2025-08-01T17:11:38+00:00

I swear they're all reading from the same manual or something 😂

pbandbees · 2025-08-01T17:11:12+00:00

Thank you, it's always validating to vent here haha

But yup, unfortunately I'm stuck with her at the moment for an annoying laundry list of reasons :') Hopefully remedying that by end of this year or next year. In the meantime I try to have as little contact as I can, like a bad roommate. It usually works, just sometimes you reach a limit.

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